The so-called “cleaning in place”, also called CIP, is a known method for sterilizing production plants in the food industry, wherein a disassembly of the areas contacted by the product or the intermediate products and auxiliary means can substantially be dispensed with. So far the CIP sterilization of blow molding machines for beverage bottles, as in DE 200 18 500 U1, has however not been possible because the cleaning agents which are normally used for sterilization, e.g. hydrogen peroxide or peracetic acid, attack the pneumatic units of such blow molding machines.
The cleaning and sterilization needed instead of this with partial disassembly of the blow molding machine is time-consuming and responsible for an undesired long standstill time of the machine.